Ruger's New AR in 6.8--A Quick & Dirty Review

[usbp379]

I'm fortunate enough to have gotten my hands on one of the brand new Ruger piston guns chambered in 6.8 Remington SPC. The gun is built along the same lines as the standard SR556 in .223 with only minor changes made to accommodate the new caliber. The bolt and gas regulator are stamped with 6.8 and the hole in the gas regulator has been enlarged to allow a 6.8 cartridge to be used to make adjustments. Ruger tells me they're making their own extractor and one of their design to improve extraction and durability of this part.

The gun comes in the same black zippered case with the usual owner's manual, etc. The .223 variant comes with three PMAG's but the 6.8 comes with three C Products stainless steel mags. Two of these are 25rd and the third is a 5rd mag for bench shooting and/or hunting. In fact, Ruger is marketing this as more of a hunting rifle rather than a tactical carbine.

My initial impressions of this rifle are positive. The gun is well assembled with a nice snug upper and lower and no noticeable tilt to the gas block, etc. Overall, a pretty tight rifle. The trigger in this one is about as heavy as they all run and breaks fairly cleanly but does have a pretty large catch about halfway through the pull. That's not surprising for the GI-type carbine trigger. There was no sign of cam pin drag and only the tiniest hint of carrier tilt upon receiving the gun from my local dealer. I'm still running the gun with no changes to any of the parts as shipped from the factory.

I only had 60 rounds of Remington 115gr ball on hand to shoot and it has been my experience that this ammo isn't much with regards to accuracy. I did chrono quite a bit of it and found it to be fairly consistent with an average muzzle velocity of just under 2,500 fps.

I started out the morning by shooting the gun with irons on a large white rock. I noted that the gun was good for elevation but was probably a foot right. I wonder if this is caused by the different ammo used for factory sight in. Anyway, it took me a couple quick twists on the rear sight and then I sat down on the bench for accuracy.

I fired twenty rounds with iron sights on paper, making a few additional minor corrections to get the gun dialed in dead-on at 100. My best group (five shot strings) ran about 2.5"-3" with the Troy sights.

Next up was my 2moa Aimpoint red dot. I mounted the optic and dialed the dot into the iron sights and then fired fifteen rounds with the Aimpoint mounted. I actually produced one of my better groups of the morning with this combo and put five rounds into just at 1.5"

I finished off the remaining ammo with my Leupold 2.5-8x Mark 4 scope in place. I was bucking a fairly gusty headwind by this point and my best group with the scope mounted was slightly over an inch. Most groups fell into the 2" plus area.

Interestingly, the gun runs perfectly on gas setting 1. I kind of thought this weaker Remington ammo would require a setting of 2 but that wasn't the case. Then again, muzzle velocity doesn't always equate to gas pressure. Now that I've fired sixty rounds, I see just a kiss of cam pin drag and a slight increase in tilt wear. Of course there were no malfunctions of any kind during this short range session.

And I managed to find all my brass!

More when I have it.

[Paulo_Santos]

Nice review. If you can, try some SSA ammo and see how it shoots. Preforably the heavier bullets like the 110-115 GR and see how she shoots on setting 1. The 6.8 makes for a nice hunting cartridge.

[usbp379]

Hopefully the SSA ammo will be much more consistent with velocities and pressures than what I'm seeing from factory Remington ammo.

[Paulo_Santos]

SSA is much better. Hornady is also excellent ammo.

FYI: If you ever want to convert the SAAMI Chamber to the SPCII Chamber, I have the SPCII Reamer you can use.

[Fred_G]

+1 on the SSA ammo. And I would look into the SPCII with a 1:10 or 1:11 barrel. Nice looking gun, good review.

[usbp379]

SSA is much better. Hornady is also excellent ammo.

FYI: If you ever want to convert the SAAMI Chamber to the SPCII Chamber, I have the SPCII Reamer you can use.

I'd hate to ruin your reamer on a chrome line barrel.

[Paulo_Santos]

I'd hate to ruin your reamer on a chrome line barrel.

Ive done plenty if chrome lined barrels. It is only a .050" difference between the SAAMI and SPCII chambers. With the SPCII, you will be able to shoot all o the factory ammo, including the SSA Tactical ammo.

[usbp379]

These seem to be indicative of what the new rifle will do. The gun seems to prefer the lighter stuff but the only 115gr ammo I've fired has been factory Remington. I have some Hornady BTHP and some SSA 110gr Pro Hunter on order and will see what those do ASAP. Anyway, these two groups were fired on the same day from the same bench, etc.

Five rounds of my reloads:


Five rounds of Remington 115gr OTM factory. This stuff really is a disappointment:

[tac40]

Nice write up. The flash hider looks like the same one used on my very old Ruger mini-14 GB model, tradition for Ruger I guess. Is the FH easy to remove? The bbl twist is 1X10 with SPEC II chambering?

[Paulo_Santos]

Nice write up. The flash hider looks like the same one used on my very old Ruger mini-14 GB model, tradition for Ruger I guess. Is the FH easy to remove? The bbl twist is 1X10 with SPEC II chambering?

1:10"/6-Groove/SAAMI Chamber.

[usbp379]

IIRC, a Torx 60 fits inside the flash hider nicely. This makes removal a snap.